


say it's what you make

by Feather (lalaietha)



Series: (even if i could) make a deal with god [your blue-eyed boys related short-fic] [120]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: "you're such a jerk" means "i love you", C-PTSD, Dissociation, Dissociative Disorders, Flashbacks, Hydra did a number on Bucky, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2016-08-31
Packaged: 2018-08-12 03:37:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7919077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalaietha/pseuds/Feather
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's funny how he can look back now and <i>know</i> he should have figured something was up, or off, or wrong, or at least fucking strange.</p>
            </blockquote>





	say it's what you make

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is part of [**this series**](http://archiveofourown.org/series/132585), which is for short-fic associated with my fic [**your blue-eyed boys**](http://archiveofourown.org/series/107477), because I needed somewhere to stash it.
> 
> Reminder that canon for this fic still stops at _Captain America: The Winter Soldier_. (Emphatically.)

Someone's decided to use the War as a backdrop for their latest Oscar Hopeful. He's seen the trailer at least twice and the posters are starting to pop up fucking everywhere, but Bucky can't seem to retain a single damn thing about the plot. Other than it's something that ticks Steve the Hell off, making him scowl and glare every time the advertising shows up in any form, which means Bucky's memory's probably trying to be self-protective. 

As always he's ambivalent about that, feelings fucking mixed. On the one hand it's not like he really needs to fucking remember one more bullshit piece of tragedy-exploitation, because he doesn't need one more reason to be angry or upset, but on the other - 

On the other, everything else. _Every-_ fucking-thing else. 

He's ambivalent about the movie even if he can't remember what the fuck it's about, though, because the marketing's everywhere and even when some of it's wrong or anachronistic as fuck it means there's a certain colour tinging the inside of his head, and that makes for a certain slant to the bits and pieces his ever-damaged ever-self-repairing sack of grey matter throws at him or out onto the metaphorical floor of his thoughts whenever it notices he's not thinking hard enough about something else, or gets jostled, or maybe notices it's a fucking full moon. He doesn't know. 

Bucky's not resigned to the way he can't fucking tell what's true and what isn't. Doesn't think he ever will be. Or to the gaping fucking holes and how they aren't fucking . . . natural. Aren't what you'd forget after years just normal, just because the human brain does that. How it doesn't condense from the sense of the moment to the narrative of what happened before it fades, it just fucking . . . _stops_ , or other times there's this whole clear memory that he can't line up with anything else, can't see where it fits or it connects. 

And doesn't know, doesn't get to fucking know, if that's because it's just . . . damaged, somehow, or if it's because it's a lie, something he made up out of fucking whole cloth, wishful thinking from half out of his mind somewhere back in the dark. And that's not even touching all the shit he's pretty sure is knitted together with shit he's made up, but he just got lucky and what he made up is close enough to the truth for him not to fall over, or that he's pretty sure is just from shit Steve's told him. 

It's all a fucking mess. Makes it hard to think of his head trying to protect him by losing the memories as something good. Even if he really doesn't fucking want to know. 

And ambivalent or not, it doesn't matter, because even if he doesn't remember the fucking trailers and their shadows of fucking plot, the images and colours are enough to nail his fucking brain back in Europe whether there are any fucking whole, coherent memories or not. 

 

It's funny how he can look back now and _know_ he should have figured something was up, or off, or wrong, or at least fucking strange. 

Bucky remembers the night after the factory fire. That, he does remember. Is pretty fucking sure of, too, because what he remembers is _ache_ and nausea and the edge of hysteria, and he didn't tell anyone about that. Remembers wanting to laugh until he choked or maybe threw up (except he's pretty sure there was nothing in him to throw up, so it'd've been retching with no point) and then fall over and give up and just not move. 

And not doing any of that, because they had to find the fucking rest of whoever might've survived. 

He remembers the smell of smoke and fire and all that shit not even being a smell anymore, how it turned into something that stabbed him instead, stabbed him in nose and the forehead and the brain. How everything hurt, to that point of pain just being a different kind of feeling sick, and how he hadn't been actually sure he wasn't just crazy, that all of what'd just happened had really happened because it was the craziest fucking bullshit he could think of. Actually, it was worse. He'd never've come up with shit that crazy on his own, and even then, he knew it. 

Thinking that meant maybe he was in Hell, or Purgatory, or something, but also how that didn't matter, because that still meant all there was to do was keep moving, keep close to Steve, while they tried to find the rest of the survivors. 

And they did. Eventually.

And then he remembers not sleeping. He remembers that _really_ clearly: trying to sleep, and not sleeping. Not managing it. Not really. 

There'd been enough shit in the trucks and tanks the factory escapees took on their way out - and enough of them had had two braincells to rub together and grabbed what they could - that there'd been a couple tents and even a couple cots. Dugan'd even shouted a couple of them up and set up (that's how it always worked with Dum-Dum: he shouted and shit happened). Then everyone was sort of milling around and hadn't started fighting to see who'd decide what they did next. 

So once Steve and Bucky _found_ the fuckers. . . well, they kinda _looked_ like they'd just been almost blown up, which they had, and Dugan and Gabe acted like Bucky was back from the fucking dead (which in retrospect's probably fair), and between that, the huge fucking wave of gratitude aimed at Steve and how that meant his _no everything behind us's dead, rest for a while and then figure out where to go_ ended up sounding kinda like an order, and one most people were willing to follow, _and_ finally the one surviving actual surgeon just about having a fit . . . at that point, two of the cots and a corner of a tent had been designated for both of them to get rest. 

Shit kept happening around them, while they did that, but Bucky doesn't remember what. Remembers lying in the cot really, really clearly, clear as fucking anything, but anything beyond the edge of that cot he doesn't even think he saw or understood at the time, let alone bothered to remember. 

Steve'd managed a few hours sleep. Bucky'd managed a dozen snatched minutes at a time, waking up with his heart pounding like he was running a fucking race, but mostly he'd just lain there in a kind of stupor. He felt sick and he hurt and every time he closed his eyes the shit from Zola's lab just showed over and over and over and he'd been so fucking tired it was another kind of pain, but he'd only managed minutes, and then he'd be awake again. For a value of semi-conscious "awake" that just meant "not asleep." 

In fact, irony would have it (because irony always has it when it comes to shit like this) that the point Bucky actually fell _asleep_ for maybe long enough for it to actually count was just before Steve woke up and got up to start doing things. 

(Things he had no idea how to do, because when it came to actual officer training the SSR stuff Steve'd been through had been lackluster at best, because that wasn't what they wanted him for. He was their guinea pig, proof of concept, science project. Then he turned out to be their only one and they didn't trust it so they sent him out to be the dancing monkey. None of that's actually going to teach you command.) 

Bucky hadn't even slept for very long. Maybe an hour. He'd woken up, seen the other cot empty, dragged himself to his feet and then cursed at and threatened the doctor until the man gave up and backed away. Then Bucky'd gone to find Steve before the idiot got himself not just over his head, but upside down and handcuffed while he was at it. 

And if you think about it, that's fucking unbelievable. If you _think_ about it, it doesn't take long to realize Bucky shouldn't've been able to stand up on his own after Steve found him, let alone make it across that fucking rail - and just fucking _forget_. . . well, everything else, because the litany just gets stupid. Fucking impossible. 

If Bucky'd survived at all he should've just keeled over at some point, exhaustion winning, the animal parts of his body deciding they didn't fucking _care_ what his conscious brain thought, it was time out. Because it does. Eventually willpower just isn't enough and the body gives out. Sometimes that's the moment you die, sometimes it's just the moment you keel over and the momentary stupor turns to exhausted sleep, but it happens. And it _should've_ happened. 

It didn't. 

Bucky can see _why_ they all missed it, including him, but Jesus Christ, in hindsight it couldn't get more obvious. Just, at the time, nobody was thinking that way, not then. Not even the SSR - sometimes, especially not the SSR, because it wasn't a problem. It was the opposite of a problem. You didn't question things going right, because enough shit went wrong that looking gift horses in the mouth was just fucking stupid. At most, you took a hard eyeball to whether or not it could be a trap, and if there wasn't any sign of that, you ran with it and hoped God wouldn't pull the rug out from under you. Again.

And Steve had no idea what "normal" was, Bucky hadn't cared to pay any fucking attention, and he'd never given anyone else the opportunity to find out what he was hiding when it came to exhaustion or pain, even later. Because Falsworth and Dernier would both fuss and fucked if he cared to sit through that more than he had to. He already had to sit through more than he cared to. So he'd just sort of decided this was what you could do if you just didn't care how bad it was. 

(And God, Monty must've been going out of his mind. He'd been through the last war, he even had kids for Christ's sake, and unlike the rest of them, the army really was his life. Being an officer was his life, leading soldiers. He'd left for a few years, between the last war and his divorce, but then he'd come back because he didn't want to be anywhere else. Fuck that was half the reason the divorce _happened_ , because he was so fucking miserable being a gentleman instead. He _was_ an officer, down to his gut, and yeah, he'd known something was wrong. And couldn't do fuck all about it. He must've been going fucking nuts.) 

If Bucky'd had half a sliver of brain and cared to use it, he'd've known it couldn't be fucking normal. He just didn't. Thinking already hurt, the parts he couldn't _avoid_ doing, so like fuck he was going to try to do more. So he just let it lie, until he forgot it was even something that needed explaining and didn't think about it until after he'd hit the ground at the bottom of the gorge and hadn't died. 

(Who knows when after, how fucking long after, how long it took before he was fit to think about anything. But sometime after.) 

 

The thing about Austria is, it wasn't worse. You'd be fucking stupid to think it was worse. You only have to fucking look at the fucking state of him, fucking 1943 versus 20-fucking-14. Or fucking now. With luck he can think his way through most of Austria, most of the time, without ending up a fucking mewling human disaster, balled up on the floor. Or worse. 

It's just the thing about remembering Austria is, he remembers now that he remembered then what respite felt like. Remembered how it felt not to be there, not to have any of the shit happening that happened. How whether you meant to or not, you . . . 

Wasn't hope, not like people think, wasn't formed enough most of the time: any time he could think enough to manage something complicated as hope he could think enough to know there wasn't any. But it was like just after the worst moments peaked and it started not to be the worst part again, you remembered what it was like not to be there, not to hurt, not to have any of this shit happening, and when you didn't get that - when you were still strapped to the table, mostly naked, people leaning over you and moving you and doing shit to you like you were a doll, needles sticking in and that _fucking_ voice giving them all their orders and directions, when that was all still real - 

It all felt worse. Wasn't worse, but felt worse. Funny how that can actually fucking work, in the way that the whole of Creation is a fucking sick joke. That kind of funny. 

It's funny, too, how he can remember remembering what it actually felt like, to have that moment that wasn't even quite a thought yet where there seemed like maybe, maybe there was a chance you'd go all the way to not-here, this-isn't-happening. Where for a moment, because it wasn't as bad, you could actually manage half a thought towards thinking it could all stop. He can remember remembering what that felt like, but not actually what it felt like. 

Fuck, _now_ he can still get completely fucking thrown when it happens. 

 

When he loses it, falls down and just fucking loses his hold on everything, it's always hard to remember anything afterwards. Always hard. It's almost like it happens to someone else, except that whatever the fuck it was leaves all the fucking miserable shit, the residue, the feeling like sludge at the bottom of his brain, so it's more like someone else takes over and drives him, while it happens to him and still leaves its shit behind. 

And it doesn't take a fucking PhD to figure out why that turns into a fucking trigger all on its own, either. Welcome to his fucking life, for more than seventy fucking years. So it can be like a fucking - 

He doesn't fucking know. It's fucking stupid, and miserable, and he hates it. 

He's on the floor in the open space of floor between living-room and dining-room that could be either, or both, or neither. That back-when would have had a wall and a door and now they mostly just have spaces bleeding one into the other suggested by shapes. 

That's how his fucking head feels, too: spaces, bleeding one into the other, mismatched shapes. Mental spaces, something like that. Not a switch this time, one space to the next, but more like time passing when you have a high fever, or if you shoved vertigo and waking up from a bad dream in a fucking blender. 

Or something. 

This time he's on the floor in the open space, legs folded and half-crossed like he just sort of - like he forgot what to do with them, they just ended up there. He's dizzy like he's been breathing too fast (almost guaranteed he fucking has), leaning forward on his left arm while his right hand holds Steve's wrist too fucking tight. 

Steve's hand's resting by Bucky's neck, and he's sitting legs-crossed in front of Bucky, close, one of his shins against one of Bucky's and Bucky's head is a mess of - just a mess of _shit_ , of shit that doesn't make sense, of panic and not wanting Steve there, wanting him gone wanting to push him away, tell him to go, make him go, and that's fucking _stupid_ , he doesn't want that, Bucky knows that, knows he _doesn't want that_ and he has to fight to keep his grip from tightening, but - 

It's like the blood-trail smeared across the inside of his skull, streaking his head with the remains of _feeling_ without leaving behind any fucking _thought_. That Steve can't be here, can't stay, has to go away, has to go. 

Fuck. 

Bucky's throat's dry enough that it feels like each fucking fold of tissue inside it catches and pulls against every other one and he has to work to wet his mouth and swallow before he fucking _can_ talk, and it's still harsh when he manages, "When - ?" 

Every God-damned muscle in his neck feels like fucking wire cable, or even fucking rock carved to look like fucking wire cable. It hurts, and hurts to force them to relax as much as he can, but he does it anyway. Makes himself loosen his grip on Steve's wrist, too, and try to sit up. Bucky's lower back joins in the protests, and he thinks it's kinda fucking unfair that he knows that carving them all out with a sharp knife would only make things worse. 

He's trying to ask _when did I think it was_ and fuck, he wishes Steve didn't have so much experience now he knows that. Bucky forces the fingers of his right hand to uncurl and let go. 

Steve lets his hand fall as Bucky sits up, but turns it to catch Bucky's hand, palm-to-back, resting his thumb just up from Bucky's wrist and moving it just a little back and forth. "Before first cryo," Steve says. "Sorta. Think a bunch of stuff got mixed up, so you were confused about what you were confused about on top of everything else." 

Maybe that's why his head feels like this. He doesn't know if that's good or bad or neither. Tries to stop thinking about it. 

Before Bucky can say anything, tho, Steve's frowning and adds, "Jesus, you fucked up your neck this time - c'mere." 

It catches Bucky off-balance, knocks the train of thought, of trying to put what Steve tells him in place, knocks it right off the tracks. He looks up - too quick, so he ends up getting two lines of white-hot pain stabbing up into his jaw and his skull and four down into his shoulder and his back for it. _Fuck._ And that's enough to derail everything so he ends up saying, "How the fuck do you even _know_ that?" and sounding like he's a five fucking year old child while he's at it. 

He's sure there was a fucking time he didn't notice hurting so much. Fuck. 

"Because I can _see_ you," Steve retorts, "you're right in front of me, and I can see how you're not even straightening your head. Seriously, come here." Steve reaches over to take Bucky's elbow. 

It's . . . hard, to let himself do that, to let Steve's hand on his arm guide him to turn around and let Steve pull him back a little. He does it anyway, as Steve straightens one so Bucky can rest his head there: his lower hand slides down to spread fingers around the back of Bucky's neck and just to the side, so Bucky doesn't have to do anything to keep his head tilted the way Steve wants. 

They're just beside the side-table at the end of the futon that's closest to the dining-room. Bucky doesn't need to actually see Steve's face to catch the second Steve grimaces. He never does. 

Steve says, "Hang on," and reaches over to pull open the drawer in the table and fumble around for a second until he finds the menthol stuff. 

That's fucking Romanova, too. Her fault. It's just also the only fucking thing that _does_ a fucking thing, because the other topical stuff goes the same way as all the rest of the shit Bucky could swallow as pills, or shoot into vein, because by the time it starts fucking working his body's already decided it's Foreign and Invasive and started pulling it to pieces. Like it does with everything. 

(Elizabeth calculated what the fucking strength of the tranqs would've used to have to be, because he asked her, the question itching in his brain for some fucking reason or other. The dosages were fucking ridiculous. He _didn't_ ask her about the anaesthesia she'd used, because he'd started to feel off-kilter and needed not to fucking think about any of it, but it'd been local, and she'd told him another time that if she'd needed it to last any longer than she did, things might've got difficult. Hadn't even lasted the whole procedure, anyway.) 

For whatever fucking reason (and yeah there's probably a fucking reason he just doesn't even want to know what it is) that's not how it works with the menthol - his body just leaves it to burn cold on his skin, and apparently that does something so the nerves get fucking confused and stop sending so many pain signals, or something like that. 

It's not a lot, but it doesn't feel like anything _else_ to fucking set him off, and it's better than nothing, and if it's fucking annoying he only knows that because Romanova was fucking Patient at him for fifteen fucking minutes, it's not fucking annoying enough to be stupid about it. Just petulant and fucking sullen, even in his own head. 

"What'd I do?" he asks, to distract himself from twitching as Steve spreads the gel over the line of agonized numbness (and that's not fucking even . . . stuff should be able to be numb _or_ painful, not fucking both) that's trying to stab out into the rest of him. Menthol doesn't feel like anything else, doesn't remind him of anything, but he still doesn't exactly like how it feels at first. The way _that_ feeling stabs him, too. 

It gets better. But still. It'd be nice if there was something that didn't fucking feel the need to fucking hit him. Metaphorically speaking. 

"Just got upset," Steve replies. He guides Bucky's head to turn to the outside, away from him, other hand shifting from the motions of rubbing the gel in to the longer, slower movement that means he's trying to figure out what the fuck is even going on. "Got upset I was here, even when you thought I wasn't real, but wouldn't actually let me go." 

Bucky has to walk himself back from how his jaw clenches, walk himself through there being no fucking point in getting worked up now at how fucking stupid, crazy that must've seemed. It's hard, because he's not even sure there's any part of him that actually fucking believes it, and maybe that's why he's not . . . why he ends up saying what he does. 

When Bucky says, "I never fucking wanted you there, even just in my head," it's the kind of thing that seems fine before he says it and then he hears what he _said_ and everything twists and something wraps itself around his chest and his throat and goes choking tight. The kind of thing he wants to haul back in, claw out and scrub away, but you can't, because that's not how fucking time works. 

And his breathing's tight and shallow enough to make him dizzy again, and fuck - everything, fuck him. Fuck this. 

Steve's palm rests warm against the back and side of his neck, hand going still and just his thumb stroking lightly down the side for a minute in silence before Steve says, "Okay so I'm looking for some kinda joke about how you just wrenched everything up even worse than before but I'm not really funny today, so you're gonna have to spot me that one." 

Even that's not really funny: the laugh that sort of chokes its way out is more at how fucking absurd everything is, _everything fucking is_ ; when Bucky drags his finger and thumb over his eyes, it's with his left hand, and there's only a thin strip of self-control over the impulse to push too hard and see if that finally makes it all fucking stop. 

"Also," Steve adds, "maybe don't do that. That's gotta hurt more. Again." 

Bucky hadn't really noticed. He still doesn't. Steve's right, but it doesn't feel like it matters, or like it's real. 

"You're fucking ridiculous," he says, and doesn't mean it. Or maybe he does. He can't tell. 

There's the little stuttering half-hesitation that comes when Steve's stopped himself before he talks, when he's made himself take a split second to look over what he wants to say and ask himself if he really does want to say it. The one you almost wouldn't notice if you didn't know how often it's fucking there, because it's so fucking short. But it's there, that split second, before Steve's shifting to lean back against the side of the futon and carefully pulling on Bucky's left arm to get him to sit up and lean back against Steve instead. 

"Yeah," Steve says, drawling the word out a bit as he works his arms around Bucky's chest, each hand resting against the opposite side of Bucky's ribcage, "I'm not sure how serious I can take that from the guy who was still trying look after the _idea_ of me when everything went to fucking Hell." 

The curse sounds weird and clinical coming out of Steve's mouth, in Steve's voice, at least so calm. Mostly Steve only fucking swears when he's worked up enough he forgets how not to, ends up scrambling for any fucking word that'll get the feeling inside him out into the rest of the world instead. Doesn't use them cool and offhand, like that. 

Mostly. 

Bucky thinks that, because the rest of _everything_ hits a fucking wall, careening off-course and shattering on impact and fuck, _fuck_ his brain isn't working well enough for this, _never_ fucking works well enough for this. And it's like he's stumbling on the edge of a sheer fucking drop, listing and head spinning and vision blurred, and he can drop to his knees and cling to the ground under his fucking feet or keep going and risk, fucking near _guarantee_ , stumbling off over the drop. 

Drop won't kill him. Nothing does. But he can't handle any more today. Now. Doesn't want to, just wants to . . . stop, curl up and stop fucking moving, and he's not sure if he means metaphorically or literally anymore. So he let's himself go, goes to the fucking metaphorical hands and knees to cling to the cliff, to words and stupid jokes and says, "I think you should fucking stop hanging out with Romanova," and manages to sound annoyed instead of plaintive. Maybe. 

"Yeah, but she doesn't," Steve retorts, resting his cheek against the back of Bucky's head. It's like a rope to twist around him, help him stay on. Like a line. 

And _fuck, Steve, I'm sorry._

"Maybe I really will scatter bits of her all along the God-damned river," Bucky says, sourly. When Steve laughs softly, Bucky adds, "You know, I'm not really sure I'm fucking joking." 

"If you were gonna actually kill her, you'd've done it already," Steve retorts, placidly. "Long time ago. And you'd never leave a mess, or a trail, and you know it." 

It's probably fucked up that that is kind of funny. And Steve's not wrong. 

"Fucking pain in the ass," Bucky mutters, and then winces, because he tries to move his head a way his neck doesn't like and then trying to move away from that pisses his lower back off. Steve loosens his hold while Bucky shifts, trying to find where they both at least only ache dully, quiet enough that the cold-burn of the menthol gel is at least almost as loud and better to think about.

There's a _thud_ from behind them, over towards the window, the two-and-a-half beats kind of thud that means it's the stupid fucking kitten jumping off her perch. He . . . thinks she got upset, a while ago, and retreated there, bleating. He wonders if she knows it'll stop, if she just has to wait, or if every fucking time she really does think it's the end of the fucking world. 

Maybe because he's thinking about that, and watching her as she pads over and stretches, yawning and squinting her eyes closed, and so he's not watching his own fucking head and what it's doing (you'd think he'd fucking learn) - maybe that's why the words get out again, _again_ , when he doesn't mean them to. 

Why he says, "I didn't want this shit on you. Even in my head." 

Says, "Just wanted one fucking thing to stay clean." 

And then it's another fucking desperate wish that he could fucking rewrite the last few seconds. He knows he's gone wire-tight and he can't look at the stupid fucking cat even as she comes over to rub against his leg and can't look - fuck, of _course_ he can't fucking look at Steve, Steve's behind him, but something tries to make him look away even though there's nothing to fucking look away _from_ and he just, he fucking - 

Fuck him. _Fuck_ this. 

Steve's right arm moves, reaching up around to rest on the top of Bucky's shoulder, the other tightening around Bucky's waist. Bucky can feel Steve's forehead against the back of his skull, breath faintly against the back of his neck. For a minute, Steve doesn't say anything. Not until after Bucky's sort-of, kind-of won the fight with his own stupid fucking _brain_ , stupid _fucking_ sack of wet grey _shit_ that tries to drag him away, make him crawl somewhere and hide, or worse. 

The stupid cat butts hard at his ankle with her stupid little skull and yowls, until he manages to unwrap his right arm from around his own fucking ribs and hold it out where she can butt her head against it instead. 

"We're fine, Buck," Steve says, quietly. Smooths his hand over the front of Bucky's shoulder. "It's over. We're home." 

After a bit he adds, "And you're not fucking dirtied. And you know what I mean, I don't care if that was a stupid way of putting it." 

Bucky closes his eyes. "You're an idiot," he tells Steve, because he's already clinging to the ground so why the fuck not. "And you're full of shit." 

Steve's warm, and right now Bucky can at least ignore the knot of numb-agony, try to pay attention to everything else instead. "I stopped listening to you saying that a long time ago," Steve tells him. He slides his fingers under the neckline of Bucky's shirt, traces his collarbone. 

"Did you ever fucking listen to me?" Bucky demands, because it's what comes next. That part's easy. 

"Yeah when you weren't saying stuff quite so stupid," Steve replies. And it'd almost be a better idea to keep going but Bucky's tired, now. Hits him like a wall of wet, heavy cloth. 

So he says, "Smart-mouth punk." 

"Miserable jerk," Steve counters. He moves both arms to wrap around Bucky's waist and rests his forehead on Bucky's shoulder for a minute. Then he says, "We are home. And we are safe." 

Bucky considers telling him to shut up, and doesn't.


End file.
